i added a peace of driftwood to my tank and the water is clear but it has a brown tint to it how long will this last and will it hurt my fish (the wood was store bought but real wood)
driftwood
- Thread starter sdothogg
- Start date
The brown coloration you see is the result of the driftwood releasing Tannic Acid into the water... also referrred to as Tannins...
It will not 'hurt your fish', but it can/will lower the PH of the water. It lowers the PH very slowly which is not a problem, but if you do a huge water change this can quickly bring the PH level back to your water's original PH value. This sudden change can harm your fish if it is to big of a change...
There is no way to guess how long it will last as the amount of tannic acid in each piece of wood is different.
As an option you can remove the wood from the tank and boil it to remove the tannic acid faster.
It will not 'hurt your fish', but it can/will lower the PH of the water. It lowers the PH very slowly which is not a problem, but if you do a huge water change this can quickly bring the PH level back to your water's original PH value. This sudden change can harm your fish if it is to big of a change...
There is no way to guess how long it will last as the amount of tannic acid in each piece of wood is different.
As an option you can remove the wood from the tank and boil it to remove the tannic acid faster.
as above it could stay 1 week or 10months, it seems the luck of the draw sometimes with wood in tanks